4 Most Balls, Boots and Brains

Sinclair User

Overall 54%

Toni Naqvi 54%

Label: 4 MOST (Alternative) Memory: 48K Price: £3.99 Tape Reviewer: Toni Naqvi A budget, four game sports simulation pack. Sounds good, let's take a closer look. There are four games here, two soccer sims, a rugby bash and an Aussie rules game. (Yeah!! - Yvette.) The Double involves managing a third division club, competing against 65(!) other, computer managed clubs and winning 'The Double', ie Both league and F.A cups in one season. Make up a winning team by buying and selling players and competing in the transfer market. The game is menu driven and includes settings for training and transfers, wages, ground preparations and treatment rooms. There's even one for informing the local rozzers of expected crowd levels at home matches. Finally, sit back and relax as the match results come through. Zzzzzzzzzz! Instead of re-creating to mayhem and violence of the real sport, Australian Rules Football, the game succeeds only in being hard to understand and difficult play. In fact, ball control is so dodgy so that I rarely touched it during an entire game. There are four quarters of play, each lasting about three and a half minutes, during which you run around the field like a raving loony, kicking and punching your way, hopefully, to the touch line to win points. At any given time you control only one player, marked by an arrow. Difficult stuff dudes, not bad looking and with some real Aussie Rules features, but a real devil to play. Hey! Now this is a new idea. In Soccer Challenge you've got a chance to begin trials with your favourite footy team. Your job is to make a huge impression on the Boss by showing him all your flash skills and fancy moves, and get him to sign you up. It's not as easy as it sounds, you're going to need lots or skin and stamina, just to get through training! This is quite a good footy game with the added bonus of a code which you can use in the sequel, if you complete this one! What a nightmare. In Rugby Boss you've just been appointed boss of a Rugby League Team. Your job, as always, is to create the best possible team, win the championships and collect assets for the club. (Do I hear more snoring... Zzzzz!!) Responsibilities include team selections, banking, finances and of course, game tactics. Basically this game looks like a soccer management sim except it's not. It's rugger. But that's a poor excuse.

A report on Liverpool's Ian Rush. Not that bad is he?

Australian Rules Football. Anyone for a barbie afterwards sports?

The Boss. The only thing you'll need is a sheepskin coat!

Crash

Overall 38%

Alan Green 38%

A decent footballer needs skill, dedication, courage and a poncy haircut (I didn't know you played football, Al - Ed). But what it comes down to is Balls, Boots and Brains - have you got them or not? Alan Green definitely has all three and is here to prove his worth… Incentive £3.99 cass Fans of all types of footy are in luck with this fourpack of sport sims. As for that rude sounding title - all the sports involve balls (tee-hee!), you need boots to play them in real life, and presumably a brain to do especially well (but that never stopped Bill Beaumont, so who knows?). The Double and Rugby Boss are management games. 'Oh no, not again!' I hear you scream. Yep, this wave of football games is still on the rampage for some reason beyond the understanding of the universe. Why, oh why, oh why? FIRE EXTINGUISHER Wait before you burn this review and allow me to decimate them. The Double follows a long tradition of amazingly boring games. With instructions as long as your arm (if it's really long, that is), it claims to be the most realistic and controllable of its kind. It boasts 65 teams and thousands of players. Each with individual characteristics, and every other conceivable factor that goes into the making of a footy manager (except for the scandalous stories, worse luck). It's so bloomin' complex the whole thing's snail-pace slow and scores as one of the dullest games yet, even among other sims strategy games. You don't see matches, just stare at a teleprinter for the final scores. Rugby Boss is similarly deathly. Absolutely no action at all, and very little thought required (flip, it's just like the real thing!). 'WHO ARE THEY?' This painful compilation's worsened further by Australian Rules, a 'playing the match' simulation which doesn't sound too bad at first. Unfortunately, it's just a load of little red and blue blobs charging around after a totally humungous ball (almost twice as wide as the players - and judging by Bill Beaumont, well...). You can't help but think the programmer couldn't give a XXXX. Finally, there's Soccer Challenge, where you prove yourself worthy of your fave team (yippee. I'll be centre-forward for Akrington Stanley yet!). This involves practicing various soccer skills and completing an assault course. The only assault course you're likely to encounter is against you're poor Speccy when you get racked off with this bunch of naff games. Challenge is a touch above the rest, with passing, tackling, dribbling (over the keyboard, possibly) and penalty taking to master, all requiring some skill to suss. Despite the measly price, I doubt even the footy-maddest will wet their panties in excitement. The 'brainy'sims are fantastically dull and the other two are just crap.

Booorrrrring! Who ever took these screen shots certainly knows how to be Mr. Interesting!

Oh look at these incredibly interesting red and blue blobs. The height of Speccy graphics (ha ha).

Oh look there's one of those plonkerish reportery peeps - methinks he's telling porkies!

Rack you brains, bash those balls - I sure wouldn't like to be in his boots!

Your Sinclair

Overall 81%

Jon Pillar 81%

REPLAY Whiffy, spiffy, tiffy and thoroughly nifty. Prey gentle molluscs, take your seats for the great YS roundup... 4 MOST BALLS, BOOTS AND BRAINS Alternative £3.99 cassette Reviewer: Jon Pillar Forget the games - on the title alone, this compilation has won me over. Ah well, suppose I'd better string out the suspense and get on with the reviews. (But I can tell you now - it's a winner.) THE DOUBLE Let's start with a management game. The Double is a classic of the genre, with a thick foldout inlay covered in tiny writing and screensful of well-presented number lists. To the layperson it may appear exactly the same as every other management sim, but it's not. Probably. 70° SOCCER CHALLENGE Pleasantly different from the usual soccer game. Challenge has you brushing up your footy skills in preparation for the competition course at the end. With passing, dribbling, tackling and penalties included there's plenty at variation in the gameplay. As a bonus the graphics are clean and detailed, and all in all it's quite spiffy. 78° RUGBY BOSS Numbers time! This management sim is from the programmer of the ancient Superbowl and is in much the same style. Again, if you like such sims you'll probably go a bundle on it. 70° AUSTRALIAN RULES FOOTBALL Playing fair is not an option in this Kick Off-like game. Rising above the obligatory horrid graphics, the gameplay is an enjoyable twist on standard footy - there's lots of bashing into people rather than skilfully dodging them. Manic fun. 80° Good stuff, with plenty to do whether you want to stretch your brain or flex your muscles. Great value, with an extra mark for that title.

Cottingham is the largest village in Europe, and that's a fact.

Prince, tired of people laughing at his films, decided to try his hand at something more muddy.

Suddenly the whole pitch was covered in camels and fat men. Nobody knew where to look.

You stand in the right hand corner and I'll run into you. Got that?

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